Recs if you like And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer...

We love books with a verbose title, and this list celebrates them! Suggestions welcome 🤗

Books about death, dying, grief and what remains.

Being human is hard! This list is for shorter stories/books/novellas that can help ground us, offer connection, and remind us of what truly matters in this dumpster fire of a world.

Please share your recs in the comments! Let's keep this list growing!

Short, quick reads that still pack a punch and wake you from your numb slumber

Short books that you can read in a sitting, to help you achieve your yearly reading goal 🤭🥳 Feel free to mention anything else from the list, I'm so glad to add & check them out 😁

A novel is a prose work typically above 40k words, though many fall between 60-100k. Anything between roughly 17k and 40k words is generally considered a novella, while works between about 7k and 17k words are classified as novelettes, with some flexibility ~

TL;DR - short stories with 7k-17k words. Get out of that slump.

Crying on the bus, train, plane or the park because it's just that good and emotional. Both happy and sad tears

(note: i haven't read all yet)

Short novels can sometimes be overlooked by readers who usually go for content that will leave them thinking. Usually, only books that are exceptionally long or are known as classics can leave a reader reeling for hours after. However, in around 200 pages or less, these authors have composed multiple or a single story that cause you to question the way things are in the world in comparison to how they could be.

Sometimes you just want something short that earns its page count!

Books that I’ve read so far that I feel were made to (also) be listened to as audiobooks, thanks to their amazing narrators ✨

Fiction books of different genres that l've read so far that portray grief in a good and relatable way (not necessarily as the main topic)

Ps: I'm always open to read more about this topic, so please feel free to recommend me more!

Books exploring memory

These are about 100 pages (or less)! Will depend on how it's printed, but basically: YOU'LL FLY THROUGH THESE! ✈️

Complete Blacklist

These are books where, even though it seems like the family ties are broken beyond repair, the messy and sometimes down right hurtful wounds gets healed. (From any genres, if it made me feel healed family vibes it is here)

books under 300 pages — for when u need smthn easy, cramming ur reading goal, or smthn to get out of a slump

Books that will wrench your heart open but leave you wanting for more. Symptoms after reading these books

1. A lot of crying (probably, most probably)

For books where the prose is part of the magic — and does something to your very soul.

Lush. Dreamy. Lyrical. Surreal. Evocative. Sensory.

You'll find no plain prose here: only language carefully crafted and woven together like beautiful lines of harmony or counterpoint. The kind of writing that makes you pause, reread a sentence, and wonder how an author managed to put a feeling into words. It doesn't just tell you what happened, but makes you see it, feel it, taste it, breathe it.

Sometimes beautiful or tender. Sometimes playful or witty. Sometimes haunting or strange enough to feel like a fever dream.

But always, always leaving something behind long after the page is turned. These are books where language doesn't merely describe the story — it becomes an experience of its own.

Because sometimes a story stays with you for its characters or its plot. Sometimes you close the book and realise it was the words you fell in love with.

The Ministry has no particular genre requirement. It asks only that the words make you stop, feel, dream, and wonder.